Carpenter's writing is of much interest for its role in the discussions both of how chanties developed and how *writing about* chanties developed. His belief was that African-American work songs were a major contributing element to the form of chanties, and that chanties did not exist in great numbers until after Dana's time. These are the sort of ideas that have been voiced on this thread (though all may not agree, it is my opinion at least), after studying the literary evidence available. What is significant is that Carpenter arrived at those ideas without so much of a literary survey (though he did read certain things, say Alden's 1882 article, though I'm not sure of the extent of what else). Rather, his material was the recordings he gathered and the statements of his informants. Living at the time he did, he was able to do real ethnography and oral history. The troupe of folklorists in Sharp's school did also do fieldwork, but their style differed in that they always accomopanied their discussions with a run-down of what prior authors on the subject had said. I think that all that secondary reading, though necessary in scholarship, colored their presentations in a way that Carpenter's, perhaps, was not.

Carpenter, Gordon, and to some extent, Lomax, all ended up with similar thrusts of emphasis and conclusions about chanty development. These, I think, were on a different "track" than those of the early British folklorists *and* the writers who followed in the vein of what one might call "secondary-source collating." It may be significant that all three men were American and all did extensive field recording in America.

1931        Carpenter, James M. "Lusty Chanteys from Long-dead Ships." New York Times (12 July 1931).

1st of 3-article series.

Notes that 3 of his informants were on the sea by 1850.

One went to sea in 1846. Sang:
[HUNDRED YEARS]
//
'Watchman, watchman, don't take me,
O-o-o, yes, O!
I've got a wife and a small family,
A hundred years ago.
//

More chanties…

[HOGEYE]
//
Oh, the hog-eye men are all the go
When they come down to San Francisco!
With a hog-eye!
Railroad niggah an a hog-eye!
Row the boat ashore in a hog-eye!
O-o-o! An She wanted was a hog-eye man!
//

On the advent of chanties – arising in era of packet and clipper ships. Maybe 10 of the known chanties were from an earlier time.
//
As a natural consequence of the greatly increased crews of the clippers and large packets, with their massive spars and enormous spread of sail. there arose the chanteys. Perhaps half a score are of earlier origin, but by far the greater number belong to this period. For out of the twelve "choruses" listed by Dana…only one has come down to us, "Cheerily Men." And of these "choruses" "Cheerily Men" was the only one known to the three veteran sailors I have mentioned, who were at sea in 1849, although two of them gave me twenty-seven chanteys that were current during the period, and had heard six others. One of these men, who was at sea from 1846 to 1877, sang seventeen that are among the best known of the chanteys, and had heard seven others. So It is safe to say that the
greater majority arose between 1836 and 1877, the period of the clipper
ships.
//

Sailors "discovered" Black work songs.
//
These working choruses, frequently taken from the Negro laborers of different countries, especially the Southern States, existed in large numbers, for the Negro required a song to lighten his work. I have found scores that have never been published. Most of them are of the simplest nature, being little more than a rhythmical, melodious drone of nonsense syllables. But created In the midst of toil and chanted over and over again for the brief respite that they gave trom its weary monotony, they bear a hidden charm that the sailor was quick to discover. In the more pensive ones he must have found something of the strange satisfaction and restfulness of the chant.
//

Mentions sugar screwing here. I don't recall (though I wasn't looking for it?) Carpenter OR Gordon talking about cotton-screwing. The narrative of chanties developing from cotton screwing was there in writing about chanties, and the fact (?) that these two researchers aren't quick to relay that narrative MAY suggest that they were relatively uninfluenced by the published narratives. By the same token, drawing the comparison to sugar screwing, may suggest that Carpenter independently arrived at a similar idea.
//
A good example is furnished by a "sugar-screwing" chorus picked up
from the Negroes of Havana. Four men, gathered about a large press,
swung the four handles of a horizontal plane, one leading the chant,
the others failing in on the refrain:

A-hum-bl-ee! A-hum-bl-o! (solo)
Ah-ha! And a-hum-bl-ey! (refrain)
A-hum-bl-ee! A-hum-bl-o!
Ah-ha! And a-hum-bl-ey!

But here more than in other songs the words are futile without the
tune.
//

A hammering song is compared.
//
Another, taken from Negro pile drivers of the Southern ports, illustrates a rhythm adapted to the alternate blows of two laborers as they struck the same pile with huge sledges:

You's nothin' but a humbug! (First Singer.)
So they say! So they say! (Second Singer.)
You's nothin' but a humbug!
That's all I know!

This was sometimes varied so that it went:

Catfish grow on a huckleberry vines!
So they say! So they say!
Catfish grow on a huckleberry vines!
That's all I know!
//

And an actually capstan chantey, which Carpenter implies may have been a Black work-song:
//
A slightly more potent type came to be used aboard ship as a capstan
chantey:

Oh, I went to church. 1 went to chapel!
Pull down below!
And on the road I found an apple!
Pull down below!
Oh, hee-dle-allie!
Pull down below! (Crew)
Oh, hee-dle-allie in the valley!
Pull down below!
//

More chanties. [A-ROVING]
//
In Amsterdam there lived a maid,
Mark well what I do say!
In Amsterdam there lived a maid,
And she was a mistress of her trade,
And I'll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid.
A-roving, a-roving,
Since roving's been my ruin!
I'll go no more a-roving
With you, fair maid!
//

[TOMMY'S GONE]
//
Oh, Tommy's gone, what shall I do!
Hilo! Hilo!
My Tommy's gone and I'll go, too,
My Tom's gone to Hilo!
//

A very interesting statement of opinion on the songs of Dana's voyage, and their contrast with later songs:
//
And with each racing voyage around the boisterous Horn, across
the world to Australia, or through the typhoon-infested China Seas,
larger, faster, and more beautiful ships were constantly appearing, creating for the seafarer a new world. It is little wonder that the insipid "Yo-heave-ho" ing and the characterless "choruses," "Heave Round Hearty," "Heave to the Girls," and "Hurrah. Hurrah, My Hearty Fellows," that had served the drab decades preceding should give place to the virile, exuberant, and colorful cbanteys, "Blow The Man Down," "Sally Brown," "The Rio Grande" and "Shanadore."
//

Making the point that chanty texts weren't much about "the sea" per se.
//
Approached, then, as records of absorbing interest, they are at first
a little baffling in that they deal with almost every topic besides the sea. For despite the fact that they were created upon the sea, sung
upon the sea and handed down from chanteyman to chanteyman
for decades upon the sea, the 340 versions that I have collected mention
the sea in the most casual way only eighteen times. The expressions
are: "Went to sea," "bound to sea," "across the sea," "out to sea," "ready for sea," "across the Western Ocean," and, in a banterIng
tone, "the briny sea."

Obviously the sailors felt no need for lengthy descriptions of the sea, since the wild rude rhythm of their melodies and the bald, disjointed
meter of their verse entailed and inevitably had the wash and roll of the sea as an accompaniment.

If not the sea, what, according to their records, was uppermost in
their minds? A cross-section from their favorite chanteys will best
answer:… [chanties already quoted elsewhere]…

Here then, in the first stanzas of their favorite chanteys, is a fair
answer: Ships, "blowing the man down," drinking, love adventures,
burlesque heroes and real heroes.
//